Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hello, this is Troy Hawk, and congratulations on picking the
Speaker 2: Happiness Lab podcast. You are clearly a connoisseur of the
Speaker 2: podcast art.
Speaker 1: We're opening this new season of The Happiness Lab with
Speaker 1: a special salutation from the founder, leading light, and well
Speaker 1: sole member of the International Greader's Guild.
Speaker 2: We appreciate your custom ever so much. Never stop, never change.
Speaker 1: There's an old maxim that if you can't say something nice,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't say anything at all. Troy Hawk lives by
Speaker 1: a related maxim that you can always always say something nice.
Speaker 2: Have a very confident stride, very confident stride.
Speaker 3: Loved it.
Speaker 1: And Troy doesn't just say nice things to podcast listeners.
Speaker 3: Madam, your helix divine. You look like a painting and
Speaker 3: you're just sitting there. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: He says nice things at every possible opportunity.
Speaker 3: I do it the way you laughed at that pigeon.
Speaker 1: Whenever, wherever, and to whomever possible.
Speaker 3: Of a marvelous white distribution between your fat.
Speaker 1: He compliments strangers on the streets.
Speaker 3: Clearly a man with an eye for detail.
Speaker 1: In stores and cafes and outside football stadiums and tourist attractions.
Speaker 2: Now You're an equal marine blue jeans Field of Dreams.
Speaker 3: Yes you are.
Speaker 1: Troy's mission is simple to meet people, to greet people,
Speaker 1: and to tell everyone he meets the most kind, uplifting
Speaker 1: things possible.
Speaker 2: Doyle heads A love it Wisdom should be cost in marble.
Speaker 1: Now, you might think this is an odd way to
Speaker 1: spend your time.
Speaker 3: I'm very much enjoying your animal print, scoff, Madam. You're wonderful.
Speaker 1: But as we'll see in this special new season of
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab, it turns out there's a lot we
Speaker 1: get wrong when it comes to improving our social connection.
Speaker 3: I like your energy.
Speaker 2: Your cheeks are pinched with cold, but you're still smiling.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Over the next few episodes, we'll look at how our
Speaker 1: minds lie to us about the best ways to interact
Speaker 1: with other people. We'll see that we often miss out
Speaker 1: on the maximum happiness that social interaction can provide, in
Speaker 1: part because we don't really.
Speaker 2: Do it right.
Speaker 1: But not to worry, because we'll also be exploring simple
Speaker 1: steps we can take to correct our intuitions and connect
Speaker 1: more effectively. We'll look at how we can become more
Speaker 1: courageous in social situations, how to less awkwardly turn strangers
Speaker 1: into friends, and how we can deepen our existing friendships
Speaker 1: both at home and at work. And the topic of
Speaker 1: today's episode, as you might have guessed from hearing about
Speaker 1: Troy's mission, is how we can all become a bit
Speaker 1: more complimentary.
Speaker 2: You have wonderful, sparkling eyes, sir.
Speaker 3: Never let anyone tell you any different.
Speaker 1: We often think nice things about friends, family members, work, colleagues,
Speaker 1: and even strangers. We don't always say those nice things
Speaker 1: out loud, which is unfortunate because research shows that the
Speaker 1: simple act of complimenting the people around us matters more
Speaker 1: for our own and other people's happiness than we might imagine.
Speaker 1: Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to
Speaker 1: be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What
Speaker 1: if our minds are lying to us, leading us away
Speaker 1: from what will really make us happy. The good news
Speaker 1: is the understanding the science of the mind can point
Speaker 1: us all that in the right direction. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Happiness Labs with doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so okay, here, how about this one.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more from Troy Hawk and his Greeterer's Guild
Speaker 1: a little later, but first I want to introduce Schwan Drau,
Speaker 1: a research scientist at Stanford University. Schwan is an academic
Speaker 1: expert on the psychology of compliments, but she's known personally
Speaker 1: about the power of kind words for much longer than that.
Speaker 4: I still remember one compliment I got when I was
Speaker 4: in high school that really changed my life.
Speaker 1: As a teenager, Schwan attested one particular aspect of her
Speaker 1: physical appearance.
Speaker 4: I have a single eyelid, and I hate that for
Speaker 4: my entire life.
Speaker 1: Single eyelids, which lack the fold that separate the lids
Speaker 1: into two sections, is a pretty common feature in people
Speaker 1: of Asian descent, but Schwan despised it. Over time, she
Speaker 1: grew so unhappy with this seemingly insignificant anatomical detail that
Speaker 1: she was planning a pretty radical solution.
Speaker 4: I was doing a lot of research on double eyelid surgery.
Speaker 4: I would go to Korea. I've saved this little pocket
Speaker 4: of money to actually do this surgery.
Speaker 1: Visiting a plastic surgeon isn't something to enter into lightly.
Speaker 1: There's the expense, the inconvenience, the discomfort, and the risks
Speaker 1: involved in any medical procedure, but Schwan assumed it was
Speaker 1: the only way she'd ever feel better about how she looked,
Speaker 1: but she was wrong. Her self esteem wound up being
Speaker 1: saved not by a surgeon's blade, but by a few
Speaker 1: well chosen words from her high school boyfriend. One day,
Speaker 1: when the pair was hanging out, she took off her sunglasses.
Speaker 1: He simply looked at her and said.
Speaker 4: Your eyes up, beautiful. I was like, really, I thought
Speaker 4: I suck, but that I really put things in a
Speaker 4: different perspective. And after that, I'm like, maybe I'm beautiful.
Speaker 1: Chwan's high school boyfriend couldn't have imagined the powerful effect
Speaker 1: of that one off compliment.
Speaker 4: You often struggle to appreciate accept yourself. You think that
Speaker 4: you're not beautiful enough, accomplished enough. When someone tells you
Speaker 4: that you are beautiful, that means a lot.
Speaker 1: Like most high school romances, Schwan's teen fling did end,
Speaker 1: but in new relationships, Schwan continued to appreciate partners who
Speaker 1: were comfortable giving her compliments. That is until she started
Speaker 1: dating a new guy, someone she really thought could be
Speaker 1: the one.
Speaker 4: I really liked him. He seemed to like me, but
Speaker 4: I wasn't quite sure because he did not give compliments.
Speaker 4: I didn't know if he appreciated me or not, and
Speaker 4: I really struggled to tell how he felt about me.
Speaker 1: And Schwan's worries weren't just about a lack of flattery.
Speaker 1: Her boyfriend's reticence to say nice things made Schwan worried
Speaker 1: he didn't really understand who she was or what really
Speaker 1: mattered to her.
Speaker 4: So I basically broke up with him, and I decided
Speaker 4: that I should move on find someone who liked me,
Speaker 4: and that's what I did.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, like, when you actually broke up, was
Speaker 1: that the stated reason or you just like, Oh, he
Speaker 1: doesn't like me, I'm just going to break up.
Speaker 4: I didn't say it's exactly about compliments, because I also
Speaker 4: don't want to fish for compliments. I also don't want
Speaker 4: to force compliments. I just felt that maybe we're not
Speaker 4: meant to be with each other because apparently he has
Speaker 4: more important things to talk about or to do.
Speaker 1: So Schwan moved the guy she thought was her forever
Speaker 1: catch into the friend zone and began moving on with
Speaker 1: her life without him.
Speaker 4: After a few months, he suddenly showed up and told
Speaker 4: me that he loved me, and I was shocked that
Speaker 4: he loved me, and I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Schwan's boyfriend said he had liked and admired lots of
Speaker 1: things about her, but it took actually losing her just
Speaker 1: spur him into saying any of the complimentary things he felt.
Speaker 4: Well, a long story short, athlete told me that he
Speaker 4: loved me and he appreciated all these amazing qualities in me.
Speaker 4: We started dating again and we got married last year,
Speaker 4: so we are celebrating our anniversary in about a week.
Speaker 1: In the end, Schwan's story had a happy ending, but
Speaker 1: she also realized just how easily things could have gone
Speaker 1: a different way.
Speaker 4: And I was fascinated, and I wondered why he never
Speaker 4: realized that he should have told me how he felt
Speaker 4: about me, how he viewed me, what kind of qualities
Speaker 4: he appreciated in me.
Speaker 1: These questions weighed on Schwan so much that she decided
Speaker 1: to study them scientifically. She dedicated her postdoctoral studies to
Speaker 1: investigating the psychology of compliments, and she chose to train
Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago with an expert who just
Speaker 1: happens to be a very good friend of the Happiness Lab,
Speaker 1: psychologist Nick Eppie.
Speaker 5: There are lots of sources of well being standing around you.
Speaker 3: You just have to tap into them.
Speaker 1: Next, research focuses on the happiness benefits we get from
Speaker 1: other people, all the ways that a quick complimentary word
Speaker 1: or short conversation with a stranger can make us feel better, way,
Speaker 1: way better than we expect.
Speaker 5: Even when we do want to connect with others, even
Speaker 5: when we are interested in engaging with somebody else, there's
Speaker 5: a wall there as well.
Speaker 1: Here In this season, Nicks conducted a ton of big
Speaker 1: experiments to figure out where this wall comes from. Why
Speaker 1: we don't give compliments or express gratitude or engage with
Speaker 1: people nearly as much as we should. One reason, says Nick,
Speaker 1: is that we often struggle to work out what other
Speaker 1: people appreciate about us or expect from us.
Speaker 5: Another person's mind's the most complicated thing you're going to
Speaker 5: ever think about.
Speaker 1: We're bad at predicting how other people will react to
Speaker 1: our social gestures. We underestimate how nice someone will feel
Speaker 1: when they receive a compliment or hear some words of gratitude,
Speaker 1: or share a spile. But Nick says we also fail
Speaker 1: to recognize how good we'll feel when we engage in
Speaker 1: social connection. Nick calls this under sociality. We underestimate the
Speaker 1: happiness benefits that stem from social interaction, both for ourselves
Speaker 1: and for the people we interact with. Nick has studied
Speaker 1: under sociality in many contexts and chatting with strangers and
Speaker 1: expressing gratitude and even and asking for help. But with Schwan,
Speaker 1: he wanted to explore undersociality when it came to giving compliments.
Speaker 4: We all want to be appreciated, it be seen by
Speaker 4: other people who especially those people who we care about,
Speaker 4: So there has been a lot of research on how
Speaker 4: receiving compliments not only just brightens our mood, but also
Speaker 4: improves our well being our happiness.
Speaker 1: The problem, Schwan thought is that undersociolity may cause an
Speaker 1: emotional gulf between how we imagine our compliments will be
Speaker 1: received and the real reaction we get when we say
Speaker 1: something nice. To test this idea, she and her assistants
Speaker 1: headed to a popular park. They set up a table
Speaker 1: and tried to recruit every pair of friends they saw
Speaker 1: walking by.
Speaker 4: Hi, we are researchers from the University of Chicago. We
Speaker 4: have a study about interpersonal communication. Would you be interested
Speaker 4: in participating in our research?
Speaker 1: Willing participants were then divided up. The first person was
Speaker 1: made the complimenter and told please list three positive things
Speaker 1: about your friend that you have noticed but for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: have not had a chance to compliment them on.
Speaker 3: Yet.
Speaker 4: After they wrote down the compliments, we asked them to
Speaker 4: predict how you think the recipient would feel.
Speaker 1: The second person, the recipient, then read those compliments and
Speaker 1: was asked how they felt. It probably won't surprise you
Speaker 1: that the recipients were much happier than the complimenters had predicted.
Speaker 1: Complimenters were off by an entire point on a ten
Speaker 1: point happiness scale. Complimenters also significantly overestimated the awkwardness of
Speaker 1: the experience. They assumed their kind words would be met
Speaker 1: by at least some level of cringiness, but recipients were
Speaker 1: mostly just psyched. When we get back from the break,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss more of the hurdles you need to overcome
Speaker 1: to become a better complimenter, and excitingly, we'll do so
Speaker 1: with the help of a professional.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: This is Troy Hawk, and I just want to utter
Speaker 2: my heartfelt appreciation for you making it thus far. Look
Speaker 2: at your bigger beast on the back. Never stop, never change,
Speaker 2: enjoy the rest. I'm sure you will.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Speaker 2: A well delivered compliment is like a free drug that
Speaker 2: gets them high and it gets you high.
Speaker 1: Well, this may sound a lot like Master Greeter Troy Hawk,
Speaker 1: who you met earlier. I'm actually talking to Troy's alter
Speaker 1: ego and creator, the comedian Milo McCabe, because it turns
Speaker 1: out that Troy Hawk is not exactly a real person.
Speaker 1: Milo invented Troy's character a few years ago when he
Speaker 1: was searching for a new persona for the Edinburgh Comedy Festival.
Speaker 1: Troy's comic backstory is that he was homeschooled by a
Speaker 1: rather strange mother who kept him shielded from the realities
Speaker 1: of the world.
Speaker 2: She wanted to mold him into the exact shape that
Speaker 2: she wanted him to be, and that shape has ended
Speaker 2: up being a very Errol Flynn Stroke David nebanesque nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty stroke forties English movie idol.
Speaker 1: To become Troy, Milo grows a thin pencil mustache and
Speaker 1: don's a colorful silk scarf and smoking jacket. He looks
Speaker 1: every inch the classic movie star, which means that in public,
Speaker 1: alongside the average people and sneakers in sweatpants, Troy stands
Speaker 1: out like a sort them, but that is part of
Speaker 1: Milo's comedic plan.
Speaker 2: The oddness of Troy's upbringing has led him to question
Speaker 2: a lot of things about himself, about society, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: One of the things Troy questions is how people interact
Speaker 1: with one another. Unlike most people, Troy never hesitates to
Speaker 1: strike up a conversation, and when he does, he's extremely
Speaker 1: polite and complimentary. But compliments weren't originally part of Troy's
Speaker 1: comic repertoire. Milo's original intent was simply to put his
Speaker 1: alter ego in odd situations and film the results. Blake
Speaker 1: the time Troy walked into a store and pretended that
Speaker 1: he worked there.
Speaker 2: So Willco's is like a local convenience store. It's like
Speaker 2: Walmart or something like that. So I decided to get
Speaker 2: a will Co fleece and show up at this place
Speaker 2: with a cameraman and just start working there and see
Speaker 2: how long it would take before anyone threw me out.
Speaker 1: The problem was British people kind of hate to make
Speaker 1: a scene.
Speaker 2: So I'm just working up the shelves, I'm helping customers.
Speaker 2: I'm in there for an hour, and eventually I'm like,
Speaker 2: are they ever going to kick us out?
Speaker 1: The footage my loog gathered was charming, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: all that funny.
Speaker 2: So me and the guy that was filming we took
Speaker 2: a break to formulate a strategy as to how I could,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that I'm this nineteen thirties gentleman who
Speaker 2: suddenly shown up working in their store, how I could
Speaker 2: attract a bit more attention to the point where they'd
Speaker 2: actually look at me and go, hang on a second,
Speaker 2: this isn't quite right, And he said, why don't you
Speaker 2: greet people at the door?
Speaker 3: Welcome to Wilco, sir, Welcome to Wilcose.
Speaker 1: Chatting to customers as they entered the store was much funnier.
Speaker 1: Do let me know if you need help with any
Speaker 1: wick writings. It also definitely caught the attention of the
Speaker 1: staff at will goes.
Speaker 3: Hello, that you what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: Suddenly the general manager comes out. He's like, puuce, his
Speaker 2: head's perpo.
Speaker 3: He's furious.
Speaker 2: So I don't want any money, so that if you've
Speaker 2: come out here to pay me, then that's absolutely fun.
Speaker 3: No, No, I think you need to step away.
Speaker 2: From If he's demanding my Wilco fleece, I point out
Speaker 2: that I'm made it myself, I did, and eventually boots
Speaker 2: me up.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you if you weren't one, please leading
Speaker 1: the seventies.
Speaker 3: If you're not welcome on books.
Speaker 1: Milo edited the footage and put it up on YouTube,
Speaker 1: hoping it would attract a bigger audience for his stand
Speaker 1: up shows, but the video totally blew up. People went
Speaker 1: crazy for Troy's greeter act.
Speaker 2: And some random person on TikTok, actually I think it was.
Speaker 2: I remember them the handle b three RN underscore one
Speaker 2: one one one just comment why don't you do this
Speaker 2: to other places? And I thought, I a good idea
Speaker 2: be three RN underscore underscore one more more month.
Speaker 1: And so the International Greeters Guild was born.
Speaker 3: Do your purple hair, madam? Thank you.
Speaker 1: Giving compliments to total strangers became the staple of Troy's
Speaker 1: comic persona.
Speaker 3: I Love the Orange it poff.
Speaker 1: And Milo wound up with viral video after viral videos.
Speaker 2: Helek's freshly washed, It's adorable, get in there.
Speaker 3: Buy everything.
Speaker 1: Rather than throwing Troy out into the streets, businesses now
Speaker 1: welcomed him. So too did soccer clubs, sporting tournaments and
Speaker 1: boxing promoters.
Speaker 3: They're very kindly eyes it didn't go on nurses.
Speaker 1: But why were people so taken by a polite man
Speaker 1: saying nice things? Why was it so remarkable.
Speaker 2: Because British people darn't do it because the worlds are repressed.
Speaker 1: But the science shows it's not just British people who
Speaker 1: are repressed when it comes to giving compliments. When psychologists
Speaker 1: Nick Epley and Schuan Jao first began their compliment studies,
Speaker 1: they started out with a quick survey that flat out
Speaker 1: asked people if they thought they shared enough kind words
Speaker 1: with the people they cared about.
Speaker 4: People report that they think they don't give enough compliments.
Speaker 4: They often notice nice things the other people, but they
Speaker 4: don't verbalize it.
Speaker 1: We already heard about Nick and Chuan study showing that
Speaker 1: people underestimate how much joy a compliment can bring another person.
Speaker 1: But what other factors prevent us from giving the true
Speaker 1: volume of compliments we probably should. One big factor, Nick says,
Speaker 1: is performance anxiety.
Speaker 5: You know I'm giving you a compliment, how good does
Speaker 5: it sound? How articulate is it? And how capable am
Speaker 5: I of making you better?
Speaker 1: Nick says, we fixate on performance and lots of social situations.
Speaker 1: We fear that we'll come across as dorky or dumb,
Speaker 1: that will use the wrong words or flub the delivery,
Speaker 1: and that we'll wind up just embarrassing ourselves. But Nick
Speaker 1: and Schwan's research has shown that recipients don't really care
Speaker 1: about our performance. They are being judgy, but they're judging
Speaker 1: us by a totally different criterion, our warmth.
Speaker 5: How nice and friendly and kind we Nick.
Speaker 1: And Schwan have observed this pattern time and again. Recipients
Speaker 1: of compliments simply don't care about the complimenter's word choice
Speaker 1: or performance. They were just happy that someone took a
Speaker 1: genuine interest that the compliment giver noticed something truly good
Speaker 1: about them. So that's mistake number one. We wind up
Speaker 1: concentrating so much on the quality of our compliment giving
Speaker 1: that we completely mispredict how awkward a recipient will feel.
Speaker 1: And Nick has found that these pessimistic mispredictions matter.
Speaker 5: A lot because it's those expectations that fundamentally drive your choice.
Speaker 5: If you think engaging in a conversation with somebody, for
Speaker 5: giving a compliment to somebody is going to be weird
Speaker 5: or awkward, or it's not going to turn out so well,
Speaker 5: you're not going to reach out and do it you
Speaker 5: might miss an opportunity to engage with somebody that otherwise.
Speaker 3: You could have had.
Speaker 1: But Nick says there's also a second misprediction that prevents
Speaker 1: us from sharing as many kind woords as we should.
Speaker 5: Many of the folks said this wasn't the right time
Speaker 5: to do it, but they were going to wait for
Speaker 5: the right time.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to other episodes of the Happiness Lab,
Speaker 1: you've probably already heard about how biased we are when
Speaker 1: it comes to our perception of time. That we're prone
Speaker 1: to putting off happiness inducing actions now because we assume
Speaker 1: we'll remember to do them later. And this bias, it
Speaker 1: turns out, also prevents us from giving compliments. It's a
Speaker 1: problem that even an expert like Nick has fallen prey to,
Speaker 1: like the time he failed to commend a university colleague
Speaker 1: on a well deserved promotion that missed opportunity ate away
Speaker 1: at him.
Speaker 5: It had been months and months, I mean a long
Speaker 5: time had passed and I just hadn't seen her. And
Speaker 5: I saw her in the hallway yesterday, and that's too late.
Speaker 5: The timing's all wrong. But I knew that was dumb,
Speaker 5: and so I just told her, and how valued she
Speaker 5: was by the faculty year. I hope that she had
Speaker 5: heard that, and of course she felt great.
Speaker 1: But it's not just performance anxiety and bad timing that
Speaker 1: prevent us from sharing what we love about the people
Speaker 1: around us. Chwan says. We also fall prey to a
Speaker 1: third bias. We assume that people are already aware of
Speaker 1: all their good traits.
Speaker 4: I won't give this compliment because that person already knows this.
Speaker 4: Someone else must have told them about this.
Speaker 1: Schwan thinks we implicitly assume that the whole point of
Speaker 1: compliments is simply to share some positive fact about the
Speaker 1: recipient so they're aware of it.
Speaker 4: But it's not. It's about beauting relationship.
Speaker 1: Recognizing this relationship building reason behind our compliments has helped
Speaker 1: Schwan explain a strange finding that she and Nick observed
Speaker 1: in their studies. The power of compliments doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: degrade over time. Most of our happiness is subject to
Speaker 1: what's called adaptation. We tend to get used to the
Speaker 1: good things we experience over time. Nick and Schwan had
Speaker 1: originally assumed that we show adaptation for compliments too, that
Speaker 1: giving a compliment over and over would weaken the positive
Speaker 1: effect a recipient would get from your kind words. Think, honey,
Speaker 1: those scrambled eggs were great. You did a great job
Speaker 1: tidying the yard. That's a great outfit. You might assume
Speaker 1: that that third grade might start sounding a little less
Speaker 1: sincere Nick and Chwan decided to test whether this was
Speaker 1: the case by getting people to say nice things to
Speaker 1: a close friend every day for five days. They recruited
Speaker 1: a group of participants to serve as complimenters and asked
Speaker 1: them to write five positive things about a good friend.
Speaker 1: They then emailed each of these five compliments one by
Speaker 1: one to recipients over the course of five days, and
Speaker 1: then surveyed how they felt. What did Nick and Chwan
Speaker 1: find Well, it turns out that their adaptation prediction was
Speaker 1: dead wrong. Recipients really liked the compliment they received on
Speaker 1: day one. They said they were at a nine out
Speaker 1: of ten on a positive mood scale. But they also
Speaker 1: really liked the compliment they received on every day of
Speaker 1: the study. Even by day five, that flattered positive vibe
Speaker 1: hadn't worn off. If anything, recipients reported being a tiny
Speaker 1: bit happier by the end of the week. And to
Speaker 1: further emphasize the importance of actually voicing nice things to
Speaker 1: the people we love. Schwan shared a poignant PostScript to
Speaker 1: this adaptation experiment. At the end of the study, Schwan
Speaker 1: sent the recipients a short final survey just to see
Speaker 1: if they had any questions about the experiment. One of
Speaker 1: the recipients did have a question, one that Schwan found
Speaker 1: pretty shocking.
Speaker 4: She said, I don't know if I'm qualified to be
Speaker 4: this study because my friend actually passed away in the
Speaker 4: past week.
Speaker 1: A few days after taking part in the experiment, one
Speaker 1: of the complimenters in Schwan's study was killed in a
Speaker 1: tragic car crash. I want to learn more from you,
Speaker 1: she had written to the recipient. On another day, she
Speaker 1: told her friend that she had a nice smile. Her
Speaker 1: final compliment was simply you care about people and people
Speaker 1: like you. These kind words were deeply comforting to the
Speaker 1: recipient after her unexpected.
Speaker 4: Loss, and she also wrote a really nice email to
Speaker 4: me afterwards, expressing how she appreciated having this opportunity to
Speaker 4: hear from her friend.
Speaker 1: During the email exchange, the recipient wrote, I will remember
Speaker 1: her forever, my dear friend, Thank you for providing me
Speaker 1: a chance to still hear from her, even if I
Speaker 1: lost her. This tragic story really struck a chord with me.
Speaker 1: How many times do I think something nice about a friend,
Speaker 1: or family member or work colleague, but just walk away
Speaker 1: without actually saying it. Not to get all morbid, but
Speaker 1: there's likely going to be one unlucky day that I
Speaker 1: might not get a second chance. So why don't we
Speaker 1: all commit right now to sharing as many kind words
Speaker 1: as we can. After the break, we'll get some practical
Speaker 1: tips on how we can do just that. We'll hear
Speaker 1: that there are strategies we can use to become masterful, confident,
Speaker 1: and even happier compliment givers, and we'll get all this
Speaker 1: helpful expert advice from the guy who does it for
Speaker 1: a living.
Speaker 3: First couple of times I did it, I was nervous.
Speaker 2: But what I think is interesting is giving the compliments
Speaker 2: and literally saying every one of them.
Speaker 1: Land The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.
Speaker 1: Over the course of this new series on being more social,
Speaker 1: I'll be extolling the virtues of many different kinds of
Speaker 1: social interactions, but not all of them. I like receiving
Speaker 1: compliments as much as anyone, but I certainly don't want
Speaker 1: some jerk approaching me on the street and saying I
Speaker 1: have a pretty face if I smiled more, and social
Speaker 1: interaction afficionado Nick Eppley agrees. He thinks that's not the
Speaker 1: type of compliment people should be throwing around.
Speaker 5: The ones that are not received well are the ones
Speaker 5: that are inauthentic, the ones that aren't really intended to
Speaker 5: make the other person feel good, the ones that seem
Speaker 5: forced or are indeed creepy, that are mostly oriented towards
Speaker 5: the self and not oriented towards the other. Our data
Speaker 5: do not suggest you should go around all the time
Speaker 5: saying nice things to other people no matter what. Our
Speaker 5: data suggests that when you have a nice thing to
Speaker 5: say to somebody, you shouldn't hold back from saying it.
Speaker 1: And as Nick's colleague Schwan Chao explains, it does help
Speaker 1: to remember that con text really matters.
Speaker 4: There is a time for everything, So yes, probably don't
Speaker 4: compliment your female colleagues about their appearance. Compliment them about
Speaker 4: their confidence and their skills.
Speaker 1: This is something comedian Milo mckabe thinks about a lot.
Speaker 1: When he goes out dressed as Troy Hawk of the
Speaker 1: International Greeters Guild. Mila wants to get a laugh, not
Speaker 1: to creep people out. He doesn't want to get slapped
Speaker 1: or arrested. Wisely, Milo looks for inspiration from his own
Speaker 1: experience of being complimented.
Speaker 2: I bet if I asked you right, I bet you
Speaker 2: could remember random compliments people gave you, like years ago. Personally,
Speaker 2: I remember walking down the street when I was about
Speaker 2: twenty three or twenty four and some guy just going, oh,
Speaker 2: I like those genes, and you remember, it stays with
Speaker 2: you and it brightened me up.
Speaker 1: So Milo aims to brighten a stranger's day with a
Speaker 1: genuine observation. But also one that can't be misconstrued is
Speaker 1: the prelude to something annoying or creepy.
Speaker 2: They might think you're after something they might want if
Speaker 2: you've got any motivation.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've got a motivation.
Speaker 2: I want to say something funny that's on point that
Speaker 2: I'm catching on camera.
Speaker 3: But the character has no motivation.
Speaker 1: Of course, not everyone is charmed by Troy's stick.
Speaker 2: Sometimes somebody will just absolutely refuse to engage on any level.
Speaker 2: Just eyes down, what's going on, no eye contact, you
Speaker 2: just keep going straight past.
Speaker 1: But echoing what Nick and Schwan found in their studies,
Speaker 1: Milo finds that the vast majority of his interactions aren't awkward.
Speaker 1: Milott reckons his success rate in landing compliments is nearly
Speaker 1: one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: It will start as shock surprise.
Speaker 2: Somebody's talking to me animatedly, and they're looking me directly
Speaker 2: in the eye, and they're giving me one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of their attention. So it'll be this kind of slight
Speaker 2: withering or fear or good lord, what's going on? And
Speaker 2: then I will sort of look them right in the
Speaker 2: eye and fire this compliment at them. And almost always
Speaker 2: it's an instantaneous kind of land and I'll see someone
Speaker 2: brighten up almost every time.
Speaker 3: Now someone brighton's up. Smile.
Speaker 1: So what is Milo's formula for a compliment that will land.
Speaker 2: I think the key is like tailor made unmotivated.
Speaker 3: You can just go, ah, I like your shoes. It
Speaker 3: will land, because you know, I'll be complimenting.
Speaker 2: Something they've probably thought about, like a type of makeup
Speaker 2: or an arrangement of clothes that go together.
Speaker 3: They'd probably put that on and gone right, this is good, and.
Speaker 2: They're here, this bizarre looking stranger is reaffirming this with
Speaker 2: a big smile, and so a land, I would say,
Speaker 2: bespoke unmotivated and sincere, and you can't really go far
Speaker 2: wrong with that. I always say, I'd say that's the
Speaker 2: trifecta of necessary elements for a well delivered compliment.
Speaker 1: Now you may wonder if Troy's compliments really are all
Speaker 1: the unmotivated and sincere. You might have assumed that Milo
Speaker 1: is mostly doing the whole Troy thing to establish his
Speaker 1: comedy career and pay the rent. Silo has found a
Speaker 1: much more altruistic mission in the role of Troy Hawk.
Speaker 2: And you're not looking to get anything out of the person.
Speaker 2: You're just spreading a bit of joint. But you do
Speaker 2: get someone out of the person because you get to
Speaker 2: feel good that you've just made someone else two percent haveier.
Speaker 1: Just like the participants in Nick and Schwan's experiments, Milo
Speaker 1: has found that most of his own anxieties about giving
Speaker 1: compliments were misplaced. He's learned firsthand that greeting strangers kindly
Speaker 1: isn't that scary. The reactions to his off the cuff
Speaker 1: comments are far more positive than he usually predicts, so
Speaker 1: much so that Milo doesn't even need Troy's scarf and
Speaker 1: smoking jacket to go into greeter guild mode.
Speaker 2: What's interesting is in my personal life, I've actually started
Speaker 2: giving people more compliments. I'll kind of chastise myself if
Speaker 2: I'm passing someone and I noticed something, you know, they oh,
Speaker 2: that's cool. I'll chastise myself now if I don't say
Speaker 2: it because of my come on and people don't recognize
Speaker 2: me out of character either that, but even doing it
Speaker 2: out of character, I've got nothing but a good reaction.
Speaker 1: Whether it's brightening someone's day by politely complimenting a passer
Speaker 1: by or giving a heartfelt expression of appreciation to a friend, colleague,
Speaker 1: or family member. The science shows we should all be
Speaker 1: trying to unlock our inner Troy Hawk. So why not
Speaker 1: try sharing a compliment with someone new and try doing
Speaker 1: it without the usual fear of looking foolish and with
Speaker 1: no expectation of getting anything in return, and commit to
Speaker 1: doing the same practice often, whenever and wherever it feels appropriate.
Speaker 1: Those few words could have a more profound impact than
Speaker 1: you think. Just ask Schuan's husband. His reluctance to say
Speaker 1: out loud what he genuinely felt in his heart nearly
Speaker 1: cost him the woman he loves.
Speaker 4: You know, our relationship got better and he was more
Speaker 4: you know, he put more effort, practice and his skill
Speaker 4: giving compliments. And indeed I receive compliments on a daily
Speaker 4: basis now, so I really love that.
Speaker 3: Hello, this is Troy. How can you've hit the finish line? Wonderful?
Speaker 2: In George, you are a leviason of the listening odds.
Speaker 2: Some folks will choose pod costs that's mainly chewing gum
Speaker 2: for the ears. We'll go to different routes, a more
Speaker 2: preferable one in my opinion, one that could be gonn
Speaker 2: enrich your understanding of yourself and others, so you'll give
Speaker 2: yourself a big old cuddle.
Speaker 3: That is a command.
Speaker 2: Deeply appreciate your patronage.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of this season, on Connecting Better,
Speaker 1: we'll explore another way to fight under sociality by reaching
Speaker 1: out a bit more frequently to the people we care about.
Speaker 1: We'll see that we often underestimate how important a quick
Speaker 1: text or phone call can be to a friend in need,
Speaker 1: and we'll learn helpful tips for overcoming the usual busyness
Speaker 1: that can prevent us from being the best friend we
Speaker 1: can be. All that and more on the next episode
Speaker 1: of The Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilly.
Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,
Speaker 1: mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. Jess Shane and Alice
Speaker 1: Bynes offered additional production support social thanks to my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis and all of the Pushkin group. If you
Speaker 1: liked hearing about Schwan's research, you should check out the
Speaker 1: new program she's developed, Flourish Together, which offers interactive online workshops,
Speaker 1: a mobile app, and physical products designed to help people
Speaker 1: discover joy, combat burnout, and cultivate deeper connections. You can
Speaker 1: learn more at flouriship dot com. That's flourish ip f
Speaker 1: l O U r I s h ip dot com